Katy Wright

Marković to step down as Opera North music director

3:22, 18th April 2017

Aleksandar Markovićis to step down as music director of Opera North at the end of July, following his first year in the post.

According to Opera North, Markovićis currently on extended leave, and it has been ‘mutually agreed that he will not return to the Company for the remainder of the season’. He will return to his home city of Vienna in due course.

Sir Richard Armstrong will replace him to conduct Annabel Arden’s new concert staging of Puccini’s Turandot, which opens on 28 April.

Marković made his debut with Opera North in 2015 with Jenůfa, and was named as successor to Richard Farnes in February 2016. His first – and only – production in his present role was Der Rosenkavalier in September 2016.

He was due to conduct five operas over the course of the 2017/18 season, as well as conducting the Orchestra of Opera North in a new annual series of free outdoor concerts held in Leeds city centre from summer 2017.

Speaking of his appointment as music director last year, he said: ‘Opera North is exactly where I want to be right now and I am very excited by the prospect of working with them much more closely. This a brilliant new chapter in my life and a bright challenge to which I commit myself fully.’

Marković was principal conductor at the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra from 2009 to 2015 and chief conductor at the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck from 2005 to 2008.